[p2p-research] Money is used by people to obstruct far greater fears

Mon Mar 2 21:34:07 CET 2009

I know I tend to simplify things to sound bites (sometimes) to incite debate
(the metaphor stuck with me is the sand particle that causes the irritation
that allows the pearl to form.)  But not sure if that's the way I want do it
going forward, i.e. thinking of dropping all such technology.

Back to careful analysis, I was not saying that money was invented to
obfuscate fears. I actually did not go that deep with respect to why it came
to be. I made no assumption why the money we use was invented (and you may
be right in your conclusion/concurrence) But I was only saying that the way
we have adopted it and the way we 'use' it (or 'abuse' it) is much like a
drug.

I'm off to a little town in the middle-of-nowhere in Arizona, so I'll be
offline for a while.

But someday we will get there, in one form or another, and we don't even
have to move in the same direction to get there. We just need to move.
Period.

Thanks for the insight and follow up.

Marc

On Mon, Mar 2, 2009 at 12:03 PM, Samuel Rose <samuel.rose at gmail.com> wrote:

> I think you are right that money is was invented to obfuscate fears, in
> part.
>
> I see things like money as a medium (in the tradition of what McLuhan,
> Postman, etc talked about with regard to mediums. A medium being an
> extension of humans)
>
> Mediums can cause our neuroendochrine systems to release "drugs"
> (chemicals) that are built into our bodies. So, money itself is not the
> drug, but our brain associates neuroendochrine releases with it, which are
> part of emotianal responses and reactions.
>
> So, I think you are in the right track. Money itself is of course not the
> "drug", but it activates drug-like responses within us. So, I am with you on
> that.
>
>
>
> On Mon, Mar 2, 2009 at 2:45 PM, marc fawzi <marc.fawzi at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> By "a better world" I meant one made of empowered peers, not parent->child
>> relationships (e.g. state->citizen.)
>>
>> I should also say that the dependence on money (or on relationship to
>> money) as a way to obfuscate deeper fears may be more start out as
>> psychological then end up being neurophysiological, so throwing people into
>> a new future world where they can be truly empowered as peers may suddenly
>> bring up a lot of up-till-then hidden fears and self doubt the effect of
>> which makes some people want to go back to today's world or confront their
>> own insecurities.
>>
>> I think about these things because I want to understand my _own_
>> relationship to money (me being on the counter-phobic side of the equation,
>> where I tend to hrow money out of the window, at least up to this
>> realization about the deeper fears)
>>
>> So I'm not just an observer but also embedded in the equation and I use
>> the thinking exercises and model development as a way to evolve my
>> understanding of 'our' psychological relationship to money.
>>
>> Casting money as a mechanism rather than a drug is possible of course but
>> it can't be complete without the understanding the psychology of our
>> relationship to [today's] money]
>>
>> Marc
>>
>>
>> On Mon, Mar 2, 2009 at 11:22 AM, marc fawzi <marc.fawzi at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Or to put it in more dramatic terms: "he who controls the spice controls
>>> the universe"  (Dune)
>>>
>>> In this case, the spice has been adapted by the people as a way to
>>> obfuscate their deeper realities.
>>>
>>> Obviously, there is always "more to it..."
>>>
>>> But like you said, it doesn't make the conclusion wrong.
>>>
>>> There's a complex psychological dependence on money that counters the
>>> intuition that if money was removed or if everyone can get anything they
>>> want at cost then the world will be a better place. It can be, but not until
>>> people become aware of the complexity of their psychological dependence on
>>> money.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On Mon, Mar 2, 2009 at 6:16 AM, Samuel Rose <samuel.rose at gmail.com>wrote:
>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>> The relationship man has with "money" is one where man uses money to
>>>>> obfuscate far deeper fears.
>>>>>
>>>>> Marc
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Interesting. Clare W Graves (http://clarewgraves.com) theorized that
>>>> money, laws, and other technologies and patterns associated with
>>>> civilization tended to emerge among people who were shifting to a more
>>>> group-centric approach.
>>>>
>>>> One can argue that the emotion of fear has roots all the way back to the
>>>> first vertebrates (comparative neuroanatomy recent findings, could provide
>>>> reference if you care). So, all of us vertebrates are evolving ways to
>>>> obfuscate fear. The core of our brains (going all the way back to fish)
>>>> creates the emotion of "fear".
>>>>
>>>> Money could be included in "ways to obfuscate fear". So, I am not saying
>>>> you are wrong, but that there is a little more to it, I believe. One other
>>>> factor to consider is what Ross Mayfield calls the "ecosystem of networks"
>>>> http://www.communitywiki.org/EcosystemOfNetworks  that shows that
>>>> currency is a system that is instituted (often from the top down) among
>>>> larger networks of people.
>>>>
>>>> I don't know the history of every currency, but I believe that most of
>>>> them do not come about in a democratized way. So, rulers, governments, etc
>>>> thoughout the ages have recognized that a way to mediate their rule in the
>>>> larger networks of 1000's + is via a "broadcast" medium. I contend that
>>>> government issue currency is an early example of such a broadcast medium.
>>>> ("Medium" in this case being used in a "Media Ecology" defined context). So,
>>>> to consolidate rule, governments issue currencies.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> --
>>>> Sam Rose
>>>> Social Synergy
>>>> Tel:+1(517) 639-1552
>>>> Cel: +1-(517)-974-6451
>>>> AIM: Str9960
>>>> Linkedin Profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/samrose
>>>> skype: samuelrose
>>>> email: samuel.rose at gmail.com
>>>> http://socialsynergyweb.org/network
>>>> http://socialmediaclassroom.com
>>>> http://localfoodsystems.org
>>>> http://openfarmtech.org
>>>> http://notanemployee.net
>>>> http://communitywiki.org
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> "Long ago, we brought you all this fire.
>>>> Do not imagine we are still chained to that rock...."
>>>>
>>>> http://notanemployee.net/
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
>
>
> --
> Sam Rose
> Social Synergy
> Tel:+1(517) 639-1552
> Cel: +1-(517)-974-6451
> AIM: Str9960
> Linkedin Profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/samrose
> skype: samuelrose
> email: samuel.rose at gmail.com
> http://socialsynergyweb.org/network
> http://socialmediaclassroom.com
> http://localfoodsystems.org
> http://openfarmtech.org
> http://notanemployee.net
> http://communitywiki.org
>
>
>
>
> "Long ago, we brought you all this fire.
> Do not imagine we are still chained to that rock...."
>
> http://notanemployee.net/
>
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